


Decorum Est

by filia_noctis



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Canon Compliant, Jealousy, M/M, Selkie!Ralph
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:41:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5056072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filia_noctis/pseuds/filia_noctis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>White knights are unsettling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Decorum Est

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [TC_Trope_Fest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TC_Trope_Fest) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Any, any, magical realism.

That was his first memory of ‘real’ jealousy, backed by will to do real violence. Till then he has been the youngest cleaner in the hospital, resigned to slurs and insults hurled at his whole body and unmarred boyish strength while so many come home to die on the beds he’d have to clean later. Sin had been humour in the face of too unrelieved stretches of suffering, even, especially, of others. Sinful mischief has been sneaking out respites in over-stewed tea and ersatz coffee, walks replacing prayers, restless energy and lonesome resentment despite limb-numbing exhaustion. The hours stolen with Laurie had been guilty pleasure attempting at being a right.

But this...was different. This felt like a hot, red rod thrust through his flesh—the pain searing enough that he could scream while calmly collecting sheets and mucking stairwells.

Later, Laurie would tell him with quiet pride that this was not the first. He had years of the selkie branded in his memory from before the war. Before he even knew of Andrew’s existence, or grew to be Andrew’s pale, genteel sun. Tere is quiet joy—and a little pride that guts Andrew inexplicably—in his impervious proclamations of how the selkie seemed to remember him nonetheless, had dragged him to the shore when his entire garrison floundered in the cold, shivering chop, chop, chop of the grey waters of the east. For a moment, Andrew seemed to share the resentful gratitude of the men corroborating the account, for it was a great thing to be touched by a selkie in any life. And now, with the war clouding over the increasingly shoddier gardens, with the impossibility of miracles nearly in direct proportion to the naked hunger for them, to have a selkie not only have touched one’s life, but to have remembered enough to return to reclaim it from the still deep is luck beyond measure. Beyond what sufficeth to make him luckier than nine out of ten men, the selkie lingered, even promised loyalty and companionship. And what could Andrew do but watch and watch while precious Laurie—suddenly self-conscious of his now attested worth—lingered further and further away, with secret knowledge gleaming in his eyes, his distracted smile oblivious o Andrew’s suddenly darker days.

So, Andrew rambles on beyond the loss of Laurie, and doesn’t start at Laurie’s confessions of cold feet and repeated refusals to the selkie, but doesn’t feel triumphant either. He feels tired, and finds Laurie

‘s grabby hands for both heroic virtue and attention slightly tiresome (doesn’t Laurie remember he has double shifts on Thursdays and was up since four?), and slightly selfish, and though he would hate to admit as much, vauely, cruelly, inconsiderate, he supposes he was lucky in his own way to find company for the brief stretch it survived. Andrew doesn’t make friends easy, and after all, Laurie never really manages to forget he is a C.O. Though he tries, poor sod. HE supposes he could be, should be grateful.

He only feels exhaustion, and wonders if the selkie feels it too.

He is not to know that he will be the one to find its skin, and burn it. Not yet, anyway.


End file.
